Performance Management of Employees

Performance management is one area which is least appreciated by employees and a major source of dissatisfaction. It is a key area through which organization not only gets the work done but communicating expectations and driving employee behavior towards goal achievement. It helps to identify underperformers and develop them accordingly. Now the question arises if it is so important and beneficial for the employee and the organization then what makes it so difficult? There are genuine reasons for it. Managers avoid it in fear of damaging relations with their subordinates. Employees avoid these activities especially development needs because they are afraid it will jeopardize their career growth. What we need to do is to change the perception about it. Instead of treating as a necessary evil or a routine paperwork drill which has to be done once in a year, managers should be coached to conduct it properly. Both the managers and employees should understand the benefits of an effective performance management system. If done correctly Performance Management helps in implementing the organizational strategy by communicating what is important for the organization and driving employees in achieving the defined goals. There are various performance appraisal methods and tools available and all of them apparently seem quite straightforward to implement. But the truth of the matter is that in order to gain maximum benefits organization must find the best fit in organizational context, especially the infrastructure and support for the implementation. Even the best-designed performance management can fail if managers don’t understand the importance and benefits of it and implement the process in an effective way. There are various performance appraisal models available. The appraisal model applied by our organization Alere is a combination of management by objective (MBO) method and competency model.